


Pink Enough

by catstuff



Category: Adventure Time
Genre: F/F, Gen, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Gender Issues, Gender Related, Genderqueer Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-13
Updated: 2014-04-13
Packaged: 2018-01-19 06:09:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,581
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1458829
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/catstuff/pseuds/catstuff
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Princess Bubblegum's been feeling off lately and can't quite figure out why.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Pink Enough

Pink Enough  
(or, Dyscolored)

 

“I know we said no presents, but.” Finn extends a paper bundle, chin down, cheeks pink. “Tree Trunks taught me how to knit and, I couldn’t resist.”  
Princess Bubblegum smiles. “Oh, that’s sweet, Finn.” She tears the paper—easy, because Finn’s a sloppy wrapper—and unfolds a sweater, cotton candy pink, which reads across the front in fuchsia block letters, #1 PRINCESS. Her dimples hold their places but the skin around her eyes is smooth.  
“I mean,” Finn continues, “since it is sweater day, and everything, I thought. You know. And you’re a pretty great princess and all.”  
“It’s wonderful, Finn.” She reaches over from where she sits, legs folded underneath herself, to give him a quick hug. “That was very thoughtful of you.”  
“Put it on!” BMO cheers, clapping. Bubblegum restrains a sigh and throws the sweater over her Rainicorn t-shirt as BMO oohs and ahhs in excitement.  
Jake hums as he sets down his mug of cocoa. “Everything okay, Princess?”  
She tries not to nod too quickly. “I’m fine, Jake. Just a little tired. I should probably be getting back to the Candy Kingdom now.” Finn and Jake nod along as they all push themselves to their feet. “Thanks for hosting, guys.”  
“No problem!” BMO exclaims. “We love to party!”  
“Yeah, you know we love sweater season,” Finn adds.  
“See you soon!” the Princess waves as she hops onto the Morrow. As they take to the skies she tries to lose herself in the rush of wind in her ears, roaring against the strange silent noise in her head, not quite as loud.

 

Bubblegum stays up late, standing at the balcony surveying her kingdom as flakes of snow waft down from the clouds, courtesy of the Ice King for the purposes of the sweater-wearing holidays. (In exchange, of course, he had demanded she become his wife, to which stipulation she had shouted, with more venom than she usually allowed herself, that she was nobody’s wife and never would be.) Finn’s sweater is in her room, flung haphazardly over the back of a chair as soon as she arrives. It itches. The yarn, she notices in an absent-minded way, is actually very soft, but it itches deep into her skin.  
It’s chilly out there in just her t-shirt and jeans but she doesn’t mind. It’s distracting. Bracing. The slow snowfall is peaceful as the kingdom sleeps.  
“Hey Bonnie.” Bubblegum hears Marceline before she sees her drift down from above, first her mane of long hair, then her perpetual smirk, then her all-black ensemble and red boots.  
“Hey, Marceline,” she sighs and deflates. “If you don’t mind, I’m a little busy.”  
“Oh yeah?” The Vampire Queen shifts sideways in the air, propping her head on her hand over bent elbow. “What seems to be the trouble, Princess?”  
Bubblegum turns a few stoic degrees to her left, but Marceline drifts back into her field of vision.  
“Come on, Bonnibel,” Marceline drawls. When Bubblegum casts her eyes down at the railing, Marceline lays a careful hand on her shoulder and says, “You can talk to me.”  
She shrugs off the hand, which Marcy withdraws. “It’s nothing,” she snaps.  
“Do you want me to leave?” Marceline asks, eyebrows drawn inward, shoulders slumping as white flakes build up stark against her dark hair. “I thought I’d come say hi, but maybe this isn’t the best time.”  
Marceline sees the panic in Bubblegum’s eyes and returns it with confusion but it’s already gone. Pink fingers tighten their grip on the frigid railing, ignorant to its bite. “No,” she murmurs.  
“So, what’s up?” Marcy turns over and glides smoothly down, headfirst and feet up, to peer into Bubblegum’s downturned gaze.  
“I’m freezing,” she notices suddenly, and she’s shivering and wonders how long she’s been shaking in her slippers, arms exposed to the chill and body barely better in what are really springtime clothes. “I couldn’t wear that sweater any more,” she murmurs. “It was too pink. It itched.”  
“You’re always pink, Bonnie,” Marceline chuckles as she brushes a lock of heavy hair out of Bubblegum’s eye. “Come on, let’s get you inside.”  
The Princess nods as a tear rolls glistening down her cheek. Marceline sets herself down on the railing, swings her legs over, and puts an arm around Bubblegum’s shoulders to bring her in, but then the Princess is shaking against her body and Marceline recognizes Bonnibel’s special tenseness as a sign that she is barely holding in a scream.  
“It’s okay,” Marceline says automatically as a frustrated growl rips from Bubblegum’s throat, but neither knows if it really is.

 

“So what’s up with this sweater?” Marceline plucks it off the chair where it’s been laying all night, holds it up to read what’s stitched into its chest.  
Princess Bubblegum is getting dressed, back turned to Marceline, who knows not to peek. Neither of them sees the cotton candy highlights that spill from the window down the length of her pink figure as she pulls on another pair of jeans. She reaches into her closet for the t-shirt Marceline gave her before realizing that Marcy herself is wearing it still, so she yanks out something pink—why is everything in there is so pink? why does it suddenly feel so overbearing?—and throws on her lab coat over top, fingers stumbling to get the buttons closed. She leaves her hair half-up, half-fallen, all disheveled.  
“Bonnie?”  
“Finn gave it to me,” she snaps.  
“You don’t like it?”  
Bubblegum shrugs as if there’s a tarantula on her shoulder she’s trying to throw off. “There’s nothing wrong with it.”  
“It seems right up your alley. Totally your color.”  
Bonnibel turns to look Marceline in the eye and deadpans, “You know nothing happened last night.”  
Marceline drapes the sweater with care back over the chair and answers slowly, “Nothing did happen, Bonnie. I just thought you needed a friend.”  
“I have to go to the lab.”  
“Bye,” croaks Marcy, but Bonnie’s already out the door. Marceline sighs. “You’re welcome.” With no gusto, she reaches behind her head and pulls off her t-shirt from the neck, tossing it on Bubblegum’s bed. She collects her clothes from last night and floats, toes dragging on the neon lilac floor, into the Princess’s bathroom, where she stares at herself in the mirror, expression flat, all undead blue-gray but for her bright red boxer briefs and the thick void of her hair.  
Marceline wrinkles her nose and it morphs into a bat’s, her eyes slant and enlarge, the straight line of her mouth twists into a toothy snarl, and then with a long exhale she lets it all go.

 

Princess Bubblegum slumps in her ergonomic laboratory chair as she prepares a simulation, pecking at the keyboard in front of her. A screen lights up, displaying her reflection; she grimaces and sits up straight.  
“Computer. Run simulation twelve C.” Her mouth slips sideways as she chews her tongue, one of her few unladylike habits. Awkwardly, as if not quite fitting around it, her mouth forms the word, “Yellow,” a question, pitch jumping upwards in fright.  
Her reflection buzzes and flickers and she sees herself in a new skin. Too pink becomes too lemon loud, the fluorescents glinting off her forehead like a crude dull sun. Her hair is gummy straw and she squints and shakes her head and tries, “Green?”  
It is better than when she was green once before—when Finn blew off her hair with a misplaced prank—but just barely. She looks like the grass and feels she should be walking upon herself. It’s too much.  
Purple is too dark, but when she lightens it, it feels like pink’s cousin, like pink in disguise, better only because it’s not different enough to jar. Blue is visually pleasant but just doesn’t suit her. She does not try orange. She considers red, but imagining it is enough without it projected on the mirror-screen. So she sighs and says, “Computer, end simulation,” and is faced again with herself, bubblegum pink and just a little gray now under the eyes, for a split second before the screen winks out.  
“What is going on with me?” she asks the dark screen, which cannot answer.  
She rises with a shaky breath—nothing’s wrong—and takes brisk steps back to her room until the door is closed behind her, her back against it, and she’s reeling with stillness as she catches her breath, fumbling again with her lab coat buttons, chucking it off and peeling off her t-shirt and jeans so she can collapse with a muffled bounce on her bed.  
Another static scream rises in her throat that she refuses to let out. “Maybe I just need to go to the doctor,” she rationalizes into her comforter. “It’s been a hard season for the kingdom. I’ve been under a lot of stress.” Her breathing slows, begins to sound calm. “Maybe I just need to take a break.” The pink walls spin around her and she is careful not to look. Out of the corner of her eye, she spots the black shirt that Marceline left behind. She reaches for it, drags it close, takes a familiar sniff and lets a shaky breath back out into the time-softened fabric.  
There is a soft tapping at the balcony window. With a groan Bubblegum raises her head. It’s Marceline, in purple tights and gloves. Bubblegum drops her head and Marcy lets herself in.  
“Hey, Princess,” Marceline says, closing her parasol and leaning it against the wall. “Feeling any better?”  
Bubblegum realizes she’s still clutching the t-shirt to her face and chooses not to address the matter. She keeps breathing through it as Marceline floats just inside the open door, one hand clutching the opposite purple-silken elbow as a cool breeze sneaks in from behind. Bubblegum gathers her strength, rolls onto her side and pushes up onto an elbow.  
“What if I’m not cut out to be a princess?”  
Marceline gestures to the balcony with a tilt of her head. “I’ve got an entire kingdom out there that’s pretty sure you are.”  
Bubblegum sighs and pats the bed beside her; Marceline drifts over and sits down. “I just,” she says, torn between anger and defeat, Marcy can see them at war in her eyes and posture, she still has not fixed her hair from sleeping with it up, “I’m not used to feeling so overwhelmed.” She meets Marcy’s eyes, distraught. “I don’t feel like myself.”  
“You know,” Marceline says, laying a cautious, steadying hand on Bubblegum’s bare knee, “you don’t have to be a princess all the time.” Her cool glove shoots heat straight up into Bonnie’s face. “Sometimes,” the Vampire Queen continued, “you’re allowed to just be Bonnibel.”  
The heat moves into Bonnie’s eyes but there’s not enough room for it there. There’s words somewhere, too, without enough room, but they don’t know the way out, so she just ends up paralyzed, stymied and lost.  
Marceline sighs. “Let’s get you dressed.”  
Bonnie nods, half-hearing, and closes her fist tighter into the black t-shirt to steady herself.  
“You want this one?” Marceline touches Bonnie’s clenched hand. She nods, sitting up and raising her arms for Marceline to pull the shirt down over her head.  
“So what’s going on with you?” Marcy asks, pulling Bubblegum to her feet.  
“I don’t know,” Bubblegum responds as Marceline leads her to the closet. “Maybe I’m losing it. This happened very quickly.”  
“Pants?” Marcy asks. Bonnie shakes her head and sinks her hands into a pile of skirts. “Can I ask what was up with the sweater?”  
Bubblegum shrugs, eyes down as she rummages. “I felt kind of surrounded, I guess.” She tosses more skirts into the rejection pile. “Princess this, pink that. All up in my flippin’ face.”  
Marceline nods, but Bubblegum’s not looking, so she clears her throat and says, “Go on.”  
“It’s just like.” She groans, or growls, and smacks down a handful of clothes with excess vehemence. “I never had this problem before. All I had to do was rule the kingdom, play the princess, it was simple. Is that all I am?”  
“You’re whatever you want to be, Bonnibel.”  
With a strained sigh Bonnie forgets the search for clothes, drops her hands and hangs her head. “What if I don’t know any more?” She notes how unstable her emotions suddenly are but files the thought away for later.  
Marcy smirks and gives Bubblegum an awkward pat on the head, leaning down over her tangle of gooey pink hair to pull an item from the shrinking skirt pile. “How about this one?”  
Bubblegum looks up to see her holding aloft a pale pink, almost white, skirt, taffeta layers bandaged at the edges with baby pink ribbon.  
“You like pink, right?” Marcy smiles, stroking fingers against Bonnie’s scalp.  
Bonnibel squints, thinks, forgets how, tears spring to her eyes and the thought about a doctor bobs up in her head like a buoy but she pushes it back under the sea that she’s suddenly feeling, because she’s starting to get used to the waters and maybe they could take her somewhere nice. “Yeah,” she sighs, the identification regaining its footing. “Yeah.”  
She stands up, again with Marcy’s help, and steps into the skirt, tucking in Marcy’s baggy t-shirt so the skirt can sit at her natural waist to fall not quite halfway down her thighs. She tiptoes to the bathroom, peers into the mirror. Marceline trails behind and when she gets to the bathroom door, she catches Bonnibel trying on poses and faces in the mirror, briefly unfiltered before she sees Marcy reflected behind her and becomes embarrassed.  
“It suits you,” Marcy says.  
“Thanks,” Bonnie responds shyly. Her face is warm again, but this time there’s room for it there.  
“Got any plans for the day?”  
Bubblegum shrugs as she lets down and combs out her hair. “Not really. It’s a holiday, right?”  
Marceline nods. Bonnie kills the last tangle and lets her hair fall around her shoulders, appraises it, then gathers it back up and ties it in a high ponytail. Marcy nods again, appreciatively, and is answered by another shy smile. “You want to go jam? Kingdom will be alright without you for a while.”  
Bubblegum’s eyes well again—maybe it’s something she’ll have to get used to?—and she says, “I’ll need something warm if I’m going out.”  
Marcy’s already got Finn’s sweater over her elbow. She tosses it to the Princess, who sees it coming in the mirror and catches it without turning around. She pulls it on. “Ready?” Marcy asks.  
Bubblegum nods, looking herself in the eye, pink hair, pink face, cotton candy sweater, #1 PRINCESS, pearly fairy skirt over bare pink-skinned legs. “Go ahead, I’ll meet you on the balcony in a minute.”  
Marceline smiles the most comfortable smile she’s felt on her face in a while and certainly since last night. “Don’t keep me waiting,” she calls as she glides towards the porch. Bonnie hears her parasol pop open as she floats out the door.  
Bubblegum plucks her crown off the counter and nestles it into her hair, taking another moment to admire her reflection, or perhaps her restored satisfaction with it. Not too pink. Just pink enough. With just a touch of other color for backup—she pulls up the neck of Marceline’s t-shirt for one last whiff, then tucks it back into Finn’s sweater. She smiles at herself, turns, and skips after Marceline.


End file.
